The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-11
SIMMER GOSSIP.
some Interesting Points About the
Ages of Women.

whatever else it may or many not be, no
body could pronounce it the age of the girl.
The girl has had her day. A long day it was
and a sunny one. but she does not seem at
present likely TO get another.
No change wrought i'll the last hundred
years is more marked than the steady ad-
vance in The period of life at which the
feminine part of humanity is thought to
reach its prime, When the novel originated,
its first heroine was the 14-year-old Rich
ardson's Pamelas, Clarissas and their kin
might better be ID than very many Years
above it. Sweet Is and blooming / refened
in the pages of Irving and Cooper, dominat-
ing the sentiment of half to a third of a
century ago; 20, 81 and % We're the next
favorites springing up with the women's
colleges, as the better education of girls kept
them in the schoolroom and out of society
longer, while the mature woman of 81 or 50
quite as frequently nowadays finds herself
brought to the fore in the modern novel
which is a fairly truthful reflex of the
civilization it tries to represent
History and society chronicles tell the
same tale as the novel When the French
Revolution was Matching the wild sayings
and gay doings of Marie Antoinette fed the
discomfort and vet she whom the folk of
Paris Judged so harshly and took so seriously
was a girl of IA when she was taken out of
the nursery and lifted to the throne Bene-
dict Arnold's wife was under 20 when his
disgrace bowed her to the ground and pretty
Dolly PAYNE before she became Dolly Madi-
son at "a had Deen Quaker belle, had kept
house as Mrs. John Tod, had sorIowed as
widow and bloomed out through several
years of belledom again. Our granddames
not so many generations removed, on whom
we look back with the awe and reverence
that hedge an ancestor, were very youthful
dignitaries indeed when they took the re-
sp0nsibilities of life upon them. As the boy
went to college at IA SO the girl took her
place in society, married at IS, had brood
of children while yet under age, and was
reegated to knitting work and caps while
hardly mature, ending all active career I'M
der 40, at an age when the modern woman
feels that she is just coming to the full COM
mand of her powers.
From being passee at 20 to being charm
ing at 80 tells in itself the whole tale of
woman's growth for the past century. That
peculiar combination of angel and idiot
which was the ideal woman was unthink-
able except in the teens. Idiocy cannot be
angelic after the first score of years. The
rosebud is delightful and everybody loves it,
but there is not q woman left who would
care to be always IS. Up to IS woman is
not now at all abashed at owning her age.
She knows she has but gained in charm; she
knows that the man who fought shy of tax
ing her out to dinner during her first season,
and who was mute and bored during the
whole time that he sat by her side will seek
her out in company now, and will rec
ognize her added experience and maturity
BY giving her credit for common
sense in the talk that he begins with her.
She knows that where her crudeness
used to drive off people worth knowing,
she can at her will call them about her
now
Frau Won Stien was past so when she car
ried off Goethe captive after he had wealth
cred the dangers of the younger Lillis,
Charlottes and the rest. And in New York
or any of the countrys great centres to-day
It'll not the younger women whose position
in the only society that is worth the name is
happiest or best established The woman
who marries is IS when she used to be Is.
The woman who gathers about her any cir
Gle that deserves the name OF salon is Mary
L. Booth at SO: Mrs. Martha j. Lamb, with
the gray hairs coming; Mrs. Frank Leslie;
Jenny June, with a third of century of
active work in the city behind her; or at the
youngest, Miss Grace H. Dodge, on the
border line of the thirties; women who are
often better looking and always better worth
seeing than when they were younger. 1t is
a tribute to the common sense of the day
that things should be as they are The world
will ALWAYS feel and acknowledge girls
fresh charm There is nothing else quite
like it. But the mature woman, whose face
has thought and knowledge in it, and who
does as well as is the woman who is crowned
Queen after all.
RosINA voKEs' rive CHILDREN.
A small boy fiat on his face in puddle
In confidential intercourse with half dozen
sociable ducks, bare-footed girl toddling
beside him and emulating her brother in his
overtures to their gossipy playmates, these
were Rosina Vokes' two children, enjoying
what comparatively few urchins know any
thing about nowadays, genuine frOlic down
by the seashore the other day. They were
ecstaticalIy happy. Every square inch of
clothing upon them was candidate for
the washtub They knew it. They did
not care Their mother never received
more genuine and thoroughgoing COM
pliment than was implied in their utter
oblivion OF consequences in the matter OF
dress
Healthy children love dirt axiom number
one White gowns and embroideries hate
dirt; axiom number two. The child and its
clothes are-and, as things go, ought TO be-
sworn enemies. 1t is one of the important
decisions of the summer campaign with
winch OF the two contending forces the
mother will join alliance. Daintily i'm
naculate and unhappy; or dirty, comfort
able and rosys 1t is a rare mother who can
rise to the situation. Children, who are
slaves TO their clothes are of all tiny wretches
the most to be pitied. See them standing
about sunny lawn of a summer morning,
Their ears filed with cautions about sOiling
or tearing, the fear of this petty disaster or
that REFRESHING every natural instinct to-
Ward the most innocent of childish romps.
me folly of it is equallod only by the cruelty
OF 1t. ''Ladylike" children you may call
them, unchildlike, robbed Of their birth
right they look to me.
There is one essential principle only that
ought TO be remembered in fitting the little
people out for country, or seashore, or noun
ain pleaSurings. The dress for the wee girl
must be one that she can be utterly uncon-
scious Of 1t should not restrict the action
Vi the limbs in any manoeuvre that the
urchln sees fit to undertake, and it should
Ne SO simple that the child's mother will not
care nor make her small daughter care how
many pieces go to the laundry. To be
brown as berry" is a small thing; to I'M
prove the digestion, to increase the endur-
.alnce, to harden the muscles, to learn some
tillg of nature by free observation and i'll
veStigation Of every conceivable if uncon-
ve9tional sort, these things are worth while,
alla might easily be part of every child's
vacation harvest
!, a poy will usually conquer his rights for
..ill'Seu For girl, if / had the choice be-
t tween lifting her for Vassar and seeing her
Dllillaht scholar in corsets on the one side,